


Soul-Searcher

by AshWinterGray



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Father-Daughter Relationship, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26226400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshWinterGray/pseuds/AshWinterGray
Summary: The moment when Rachel was accusing Jason of drawing the crucifixes in her room went differently. Because when Rachel shoved Jason, her powers surged out.And suddenly Rachel was falling.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Rachel Roth, Rachel Roth & Dick Grayson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 136





	Soul-Searcher

**Author's Note:**

> I am one of those bizarre people who doesn't swear. Ever. I find swear words uncreative and an insult to our ability to use our words. So I cut out the swear words. 
> 
> Don't like it, don't read it.

“All you do is give people reason to hate you!” Rachel barked at Jason.

She didn’t care that her powers were crackling under her skin. She didn’t care that she may hurt Jason. She was just so angry. Her room was _hers._ He had no right to touch it like that. Especially so cruelly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

So deadpanned. It only made her anger rage more.

“The crosses on my mirror!”

“I still don’t know what you’re-”

“DON’T LIE TO ME!”

And then, with her powers raging, Rachel shoved him. Her powers surged through her arm, latching onto Jason in her rage. He didn’t react. And in that moment, Rachel realized why. A scream died in her throat as she found herself falling, Dick above her, calling for Jason. Reaching as she fell. The impact of hitting the ground caused Rachel to lurch forward, slamming herself and Jason onto the ground of his bedroom. Rachel gasped as if she had drowned, searching for air as she gripped Jason tight.

“What…what was that?” she gasped out breathlessly.

But when she finally met Jason’s eyes, she realized he was still falling. How long had he been like this? How had she seen what he was seeing? Was it her powers? Had he been falling all this time?

“Jason,” she breathed, crawling off him. “Jason, look at me.”

He did, slowly, almost mechanical.

“I didn’t…”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

And she was. There was no way Jason could have drawn the crosses in her room if he had been like this since Dick and Kory saved him. She…she had to do something. He was still falling. She could see it in his eyes.

“Just, hold on,” Rachel spoked softly, raising her hands to either side of Jason’s head, letting her powers flow from her and into Jason. “It’s going to be okay.”

Rachel shut her eyes, and this time found herself standing below Jason. She watched as Jason, hand soaked with blood, slipped from Dick’s hold. Watched as he plummeted to the ground. Focusing solely on Jason, Rachel let her powers reach out to Jason.

A Raven burst forth from her body, taking Jason in a swirl of bright purple and placed him on the ground in front of her.

“We’ll catch you, Jason,” she gripped his hands tightly. “We will. We may not be able to stop the fall, but we’ll catch you.”

She wasn’t sure how she knew that was what Jason needed to hear. But the next second, Jason and Rachel were opening their eyes in Jason’s bedroom, both safely on solid ground. He was staring at her in disbelief.

“Are you still falling?” she asked, studying his eyes, hands still hovering beside his head.

He shook his head, tears pricking his eyes. Rachel surged forward, wrapping her arms around Jason. If her shoulder got a little damp, she wasn’t _ever_ going to bring it up after what she had just seen. But then she pulled back, a terrifying thought striking her.

“There’s no way you drew the crucifixes in my room,” Rachel breathed in horror. “So if you didn’t…then who did?”

Jason got suddenly pale as they both came to the same horrifying conclusion. Rachel quickly grabbed Jason’s hand, tugging him with her to warn the others. She barely had time to realize she had controlled her powers on her own. Managed to save instead of hurt. But even when she did think about it, she brushed it to the back of her mind. There were more important things.

“Someone’s in the tower,” Rachel stated as she and Jason burst into the main sitting area of the Tower. “I don’t know who, but they’re messing with me.”

“Woah, woah, what’s going on?” Hank motioned for her to slow down. “Start again. Why do you think someone is messing with you?”

“Someone drew crucifixes all over my room,” Rachel continued to rush out. “I thought it was Jason, but he wasn’t anywhere near my room. The only other person who would know why I hate them is asleep. So someone has to be messing with me.”

“Wait,” Dawn stood up slowly. “My picture of Ellis…it was…it was moved. I thought-”

“The bottle of alcohol,” Hank stumbled back.

Donna was growing pale too. “The orange soda.”

Rachel and Jason shared looks. This wasn’t good. And then Dick ran out of the elevator, a gun in his hand as Gar sleepily joined them, and Kory listened in the kitchen.

“Dick?” Hank called, taking in the disheveled look of his teammate. “What’s going on? Why do you have a gun?”

“Slade,” Dick answered, clearly out of breath. “He’s in the tower. He had pictures of us.”

Rachel’s grip on Jason’s hand tightened as he attempted to pull away. She turned to him, using both her hands to pull him closer to her side as the older Titans tried to calm down their frantic teammate.

“It’s my fault,” Dick was breathing a little too harshly for Rachel’s liking, and judging the whimper from Jason, he wasn’t taking it well either. “I’m sorry. I should have told all of you the truth. I’m so sorry.”

“Dick?” Jason called, voice shaking.

Dick’s head jerked to Jason and he staggered towards the younger. This, of course, was not a good idea as Jason tensed on instinct. Rachel reached out her hand to stop Dick, touching his chest. Once again, her power surged.

This time she was in some sort of building, facing off Slade. Dick, because that was who she had to be, was losing the battle. And then someone Rachel had never seen before jumped in front of her and took the sword to the chest. She knew who it was because Dick knew who it was. She could feel his guilt and agony at the loss of a friend. A death that never should have happened. If this was what Dick felt she could see why he had never said anything.

Meanwhile, the others were freaking out.

“What the heck is she doing to him?” Hank demanded.

“Rachel!” Gar was reaching for her.

“Stop her!” Dawn cried out.

“NO!”

Everyone turned to Jason.

“Let her work. She can help. She helped me.”

Rachel’s grip on Dick tightened.

Back in the dream, Rachel had willed it to repeat. And this time, she stood behind Dick. Willing her powers forward, she summoned the Raven deep within her and let it blow Slade back and away from Jericho. Dick spun around, leaving just him and her.

“Jericho never blamed you, Dick. Not once. He did what he did because he loved you and he wanted you to live. Don’t waste what he gave you. Let us help. Let us forgive you for your sake and Jericho’s.”

Dick fell to his knees, and the two opened their eyes back in Titans Tower. Like she had with Jason, Rachel threw her arms around Dick, let him process what had just happened as he began to sob.

“What. Was. That?”

Rachel looked up to Hank and the others.

“I think I learned a new power,” Rachel admitted.

\------------------------------------

After they fetched Rose, they had sat everyone down and Dick explained the truth about Jericho with Jason and Rachel bracketing him in. Hank got up to punch Dick in the face, but Jason caught the fist.

“Let go, kid,” Hank growled.

“No.”

“Jason-”

“I’ll let Hank throw that punch when he can swear to me on the thing he holds most dear that he had nothing to do with recruiting Jericho in the first place,” Jason snapped at Dawn, and turned that same glare on Donna before she could say anything. “Dick messed up. Yeah. But so did all of you. At least Dick went to go fix it. At least Dick _has been_ doing everything in his power to fix it.”

“It’s eating him,” Rachel stated, turning Hank’s attention to her. “The guilt of what happened. Slade threatened to kill _all_ of you if you came back together. He manipulated Dick into taking the blame for his own son’s death caused by _his_ hand. Dick kept it to himself because he thought it was the best way to keep you safe. To keep _all of us_ safe. You’re proving Slade right by blaming Dick.”

Hank took a step back at that, sharing looks with both Donna and Dawn. But Dick was looking at Rachel.

“How did you-?”

“I could see your thoughts,” Rachel admitted. “I did it with Jason first, when I thought he drew crucifixes in my room. I sort of…entered his mind. Saw what he was seeing in the moment. I felt what he felt.”

“Like an empath,” Gar guessed. “And…telepathy?”

“No,” Donna shook her head. “I know a telepath. That’s not what it she claimed it was like.”

“We can worry about this later,” Kory spoke up for the first time since this all started. “Right now, we have a mad man watching us in the tower. He’s emotionally manipulated Dick, and we need to figure out what we’re going to do next.”

Jason looked to Dick, giving his brother a nudge. Whatever it was Jason was implying with that movement, it was clear that Dick didn’t like it. However, he also seemed resigned.

“We’re going with plan Omega.”

_“WHAT?!”_

“We need to,” Dick pointed out. “Everyone go pack. Now. We’re going with plan Omega.”

Rachel didn’t like being out of the loop, but given a crazy assassin was after them, she didn’t argue. The group ended up separating into different cars. Rachel, Jason, Kory, and Dick in one car. Dawn and Hank with Rose. And Donna with Conner, Krypto and Gar. They end up driving in separate directions, switching vehicles, and separating further.

It was near midnight when their cars once more met up. In Gotham.

“We’re safe here,” Dick nodded to his car occupants. “We can discuss now.”

“What’s plan Omega?” Kory asked immediately.

“Go to the Bat,” Jason and Dick chorused.

“It’s a last-ditch resort when things just…go wrong,” Dick explained. “Horribly, horribly wrong.”

A shadow flew of the car and Dick slowly put on the breaks. Said shadow landed before them, revealing the Batman in the headlights. He didn’t seem very amused. Jason and Dick both seemed relieved, however, and the batmobile pulled up behind Batman. Batman simply jumped in and Dick began to follow after him.

Rachel couldn’t remember ever seeing Jason or Dick this relaxed before.

\----------------------------------------

Rachel gasped in awe at the Batcave as they exited the car. Jason was grinning, racing to Batman who caught the boy in a hug with a laugh. The others were just as in awe too, except for Donna, who had been here before.

“When you said a cave, I wasn’t expecting a literal cave,” Kory confessed. “But this is…”

“Awesome?”

“Insane.”

Dick chuckled and turned to face Batman. The latter had left the cowl on, but he was offering Dick a look that made the younger man stagger forward and towards the Bat. Batman easily pulled Dick into a hug. It was clear neither was going to let go anytime soon, so Batman whispered something to Jason and the younger nodded, hugging both Batman and Dick before going to join the others.

“Batman says to take you upstairs,” Jason informed. “Dick and Batman need to talk, and they might be awhile.”

Donna seemed to understand and began to herd everyone after Jason so the two could get some privacy.

“Now before we have this discussion,” Bruce pulled Dick a little closer, resting his chin on top of Dick’s head. “Care to tell me why there’s a kid that looks just like your Uncle Clark and Lex Luthor had a child?”

Dick snorted, becoming a full-on laugh as he tried to curl into his father. Yeah, that was something he hadn’t wanted to think about.

Upstairs, Alfred had shown everyone to their rooms, and Jason had crept over to Rachel’s room. She let him in, clearly not able to sleep either.

“I don’t think I thanked you yet,” Jason stated the moment Rachel let him in. “So thank you. I’d probably still be a mess and have done something stupid.”

“No. Don’t…don’t worry about it. I’m just sorry that it took me lashing out at you to realize you needed help. But…listen…there’s something I haven’t told the others yet. About Jericho. It’s important.”

Jason studied Rachel but nodded and shut the door.

“I think Jericho is alive.”

Of all the things Rachel could have said, that wasn’t what Jason expected to hear.

_“What?”_

“We’ll need to ask Rose,” Rachel rushed out. “But Jericho was a meta. Like Gar. Except he could place his soul into another person. Like possession. But it had to be through eye contact. Dick was too upset to see it, but I think Jericho placed his soul inside Slade. He’s still alive inside his father.”

Jason’s jaw clenched. “Then we need to do something. We can’t leave that kid to a fate trapped inside his dad like that.”

“Right,” Rachel nodded. “So what do we do?”

“For start; not keep secrets. Not anymore.”

Rachel could agree to that.

\------------------------------------------

Dick was asleep by the time Bruce brought him upstairs. If Rachel was surprised that Bruce Wayne was Batman, she didn’t say. She and Jason agreed to wait till everyone was awake before they revealed the truth to the others. After all, they needed time to process what they had already been told.

It was around lunch on the next day that everyone gathered together in one of the sitting rooms. But to everyone’s surprise, it was Donna who spoke first. Who told the others abut Garth and Lilian. It left everyone reeling, but Dick couldn’t blame the girl who was his best friend and sister. They had both been eaten by their own guilt for too long.

So the bomb Rachel and Jason dropped was hard to process.

“We think Jericho’s alive. In Slade.”

Even Rose looked horrified, and Rachel and Jason suspected she was their spy. Or, at the very least, the person who had been messing with them. It was slightly comforting to know she, at least, had no idea her brother was alive to begin with.

As Rachel explained what she had seen in Dick’s mind, Jason searched the faces of the Titans. Though horrified, each of them seemed to come to the same conclusion Jason and Rachel had. They needed to save Jericho.

Somehow.

“Even if Jericho was still alive, the only way we could really help him would be for one of us to look Slade in the eyes and have Jericho come into our minds,” Dawn explained to the others. “That might be a better scenario than being locked away in his Father’s mind, but it wouldn’t be freedom. Jericho would still be a prisoner in someone’s mind.”

“We’d need a body, then,” Gar shrugged. “Give him a way to live.”

“Yeah, but he can’t exactly possess a dead body,” Hank grumpily pointed out. “And I doubt a coma patient would be willing to let someone else steal their body either.”

“Maybe we should focus on saving Jericho first,” Donna stated. “We can worry about technicalities about how we give Jericho his life back later. What matters is that we have to find a way to draw Jericho out. I doubt Slade will take off his mask. And even then, he’ll fight us if we even attempt to let Jericho come to us.”

That did put a damper on things.

“I might be able to help with that,” Rachel volunteered. “I might not be as good at getting into people’s heads as Jericho is, but I might be able to coax him out. We’d just need someone to get Slade’s mask off and make eye contact.”

“I think we can do that,” Dick assured her, and he seemed…proud. It made Rachel flush. “Whatever you need, we’ll try to provide.”

Rachel smiled at him. Things had been rocky since Slade had re-entered Dick’s life, and now that Rachel understood the reason and the guilt behind his actions, she couldn’t be angry. Now she wanted to help him. Just like he helped her.

“So, what’s the plan?”

\-----------------------------

In the end, it was Rose turning on Slade that gave them the advantage. Jason wasn’t sure if he was horrified or relieved when his tormentor was stabbed by his own daughter, but even Jason knew the man wouldn’t die. His healing ability wouldn’t allow that.

It only seemed fitting that Rose be the one to let Jericho share her mind. She had originally sided with Slade for vengeance for her brother. So it made sense to switch sides for the same reasons.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Rose whispered to the Dick, Rachel, and Jason.

“I can’t really blame you,” Dick admitted. “I still blame myself.”

“He’s says you’re an idiot, and once I get my answer, I’m go to let him talk to you,” Rose told Dick, and then she turned to Rachel and Jason. “Why aren’t you surprised?”

Jason and Rachel looked to each other. “Well, it started with the crucifixes in my room. Jason and Gar were the only ones who were present, and it didn’t seem like something Slade would have thought to use.”

“We figured it had to be someone trusted on the inside,” Jason added. “It couldn’t have been Gar, because Gar is literally that pure. No acting to it.”

“I would know,” Rachel smiled sheepishly. “I met his family.”

“And seeing as how the original Titans were all far from likely to turn on their friends, and Kori’s too busy with her memories to really get involved,” Jason shrugged as if the answer was obvious. And when he put it that way… “You were the only logical option. Rachel and I agreed we should wait to see how you acted to what we had to tell you. We didn’t think Slade had told you the whole truth about Jericho, and your reaction proved us right.”

“But…but I hurt you,” Rose said. “How can you just act like this is okay?”

This time, a knowing smile was shared between the two.

“Believe us, Rose, we know more than our fair share about blame and incomplete stories,” Rachel assured. “Besides, you were only acting on what you thought was right. We can’t blame you for your upbringing. Jason and I are especially not ones to talk.”

Rose looked like she might cry. And apologize. And shut down. Thankfully, her brother had her back and he took over so that Rose could process everything. The original Titans were clearly relieved to have Jericho back, and with Slade detained, they made their way to a safe house Bruce had set up while he took care of the people who created Conner.

The original Titans had gone to catch up with Jericho and try to console Rose. Which left Kori to supervise as Gar and Jason taught Conner and Rachel to cook.

“So the noodles absorb the water?”

“Yeah,” Jason grinned at Conner. “Technically, you could eat the noodles raw, which is when they don’t absorb the water, but they taste way better once they’re cooked and covered in sauce. Maybe after I teach you to make pasta, we can move on to more exciting things. Like lasagna.”

“What’s that?”

“Layered pasta with meat and cheese and other fun things.”

With Jason and Conner doing pasta (with and without meat), Rachel and Gar were tasked with making home-made garlic roles to go with. It was a mess, and they were both covered in flour, but they were both grinning.

“Stop eating the cheese,” Gar made a swipe for the plate they had shredded earlier.

Rachel moved it out of the way. “No!”

“But we can’t finish the batter without the cheese!”

If this was what family was like, Rachel would take the bad moments. Because the bad moments seemed to lead to good moments like this. These moments were definitely worth the bad.

**Author's Note:**

> So; for those of you confused, Rachel's true power (according to the comics) has hardly been touched yet. 
> 
> Rachel has the power to astral project, which is why she sees things others don't. Such as the John and Mary Grayson falling and Dick getting stabbed. Her powers also tell her when someone is emotionally in danger and she has the power to calm them. I combined these two powers.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
